Saturday, September 6, 2014

During my 2013 NFL Road Trip, I saw games in all 32 stadiums (for the last time, Met Life Stadium counts twice). But I missed two venues in which an NFL game was played: Rogers Centre in Toronto and Wembley in London. This season, Buffalo is playing all 8 of their home games at Ralph Wilson Stadium so I won't be able to see an NFL game in Canada, but there are three games in London that have piqued my interest. Miami takes on Oakland on September 28, Atlanta plays Detroit on October 26, and Dallas will battle Jacksonville on November 9. All three happen to occur on weekends in which the Premier League has fixtures on the Saturday in London, and each weekend will also have FA Cup matches (Second Round Qualifying, Fourth Round Qualifying First Round Proper respectively). Of course, you don't know the teams until the previous round is completed, so it is not possible to plan for those games, but there should be something in London on all 3 weekends. The question is which is the best weekend to go?

After much thought and schedule checking, I decided on the third game between the Jaguars and Cowboys. I'll fly overnight on Friday, arriving Saturday morning. This should give me enough time to see a 3:00 game at Fulham (now relegated to the Championship) and then a 5:30 contest with QPR hosting Man City. Even better, Tottenham has had their match against Stoke rescheduled to Sunday at 1:30 due to their commitments in the Europa League, so I'll get to see that before heading over to Wembley for the NFL game. Monday is open but I'm hoping for some FA Cup matches to be scheduled that day. Update: I found a Conference South matchup on November 10th, so have added that in for now.